In conventional implementations of seatback literature pockets for aircraft seats, a pocket spring is attached to seatback frame. The pocket spring may include coils affixed to each side of the seatback frame with fore-and-aft orientation in which the coils face fore-and-aft with a fore-and-aft center axis. Coils of the pocket spring are normally pre-loaded during assembly and installation of the seatback pocket such that when the seatback pocket is closed, the pocket spring holds the seatback pocket in the closed position. To open the seatback pocket in order to access items within the pocket or insert items into the pocket, a passenger pulls the pocket away from the seatback frame, which extends and engages the pocket spring. When the passenger releases the seatback pocket, the pre-loading of the pocket spring causes the seatback pocket to snap back and remain in the closed position.
Due to aircraft cabin space saving design considerations for providing additional aircraft cabin space for additional legroom for passengers and/or additional rows of seats to be added into the cabin, attaching the pocket spring to the seatback frame may cause the seatback pocket to take up more space than is desirable, which makes designing the spring loading characteristics of the pocket springs more difficult. In addition, because the pocket spring is attached to the seatback frame, conventional springs require sufficient material to bridge the distance between the coils and the attachment points on the back frame, which adds additional cost to the manufacturing of the spring as well as additional weight to the aircraft seat to which the pocket spring is mounted.